Getting a Film Director experience

Inspired by Belarusian protests and the pro-democracy movement of 2020 musical band Naviband and the musical chorus Volny Chor (literally "Chorus of Freedom") created a song which replicated a song from the movie "The Hanging Tree".

Unexpectedly for me, Naviband proposed to make a music video for the song.

It was a very challenging adventure for me because I faced about 30+ people (most of them I can't mention, as they are activists in danger).

The challenging task was to organise them together and... Just go and "make a music video".

I found an inspiring place which I thought should be good for the reason. I made a concept of the action. Then I bought smoke bombs from the football fans' store in white and red colours (colours of the flag used by the Belarusian national movement). I planned the action, filmed it and then edited and post-process the final music video.

It was released?on the Youtube channel?of the band.

For an unknown reasons, LinkedIn can't use embedded video inside the article, but you can watch on YouTube

The funniest thing for me is that the band was travelling with a professional documental filming group which was making a documentary about them. And both (the filming action and me) accidentally became a part of this film-in-making. And in this documentary, I am behaving as a film director :). But in reality, I was a shy and nervous guy doing all of this for the first time in my life.

Stage photo

Editing in Final Cut Pro X

Another frame from the video

This project pushed me to self-improvement in video production. With help of real professionals, I revised my filming skills and the gear I use.

I love this project for meeting extremely inspiring activists fighting for the value of freedom and democracy.

Backstage credits: Artem Lukjanenko

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